Most communications among businesses and individuals now-a-days are transmission of digital information via electronic means, such as text messaging, emails, instant messaging, etc. With the increased use of electronic communications, there is an increased need for controlling and monitoring such use to avoid misdirection of communication. Oftentimes, electronic communication is sent to unintended recipients due to the address “auto-complete” feature of email, text or instant messaging programs. Other times, the sender simply inputs the wrong recipient's email address or phone number, and the wrong recipient thereby receives the electronic communication while the intended recipient does not.
If an electronic communication is sent to a wrong recipient, sometimes it may be inconsequential and one can ask the unintended recipient to ignore the electronic communication. This may not be possible if the sender does not realize the communication was sent to the wrong recipient or the unintended recipient does not notify the sender. Even though it is common practice to use a notice within an electronic communication requesting the recipient to delete and/or return the message if the recipient is not the intended recipient, not all unintended recipients do so. If the sender simply forgets to include an intended recipient in the list of recipients of a group, then it would be impossible to correct such a mistake.
If a recipient has a conflicting interest with the sender or one or more of the intended recipients of the communication and/or the communication contains sensitive or privileged information, then there may be a more dire consequence for misdirected electronic communication. Examples of conflicting parties are: an insurer and the insured; competing businesses; management and staff; parties involved in medical care who have differing interests; and opposing parties in a lawsuit. Sensitive information may contain privileged information, trade secrets, privacy data, confidential business, and confidential financial information.
Known prior art method prevents an electronic communication from ever being sent to an identified recipient by blocking the particular recipient in a sender's electronic communication program. However, this is not a sufficient or proper means to prevent error when it would be necessary to send such communication in certain instances because it prevents all electronic communications from being sent to such recipient.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a system and method of controlling, monitoring, detecting and preventing sending of electronic communications to a conflicting recipient or recipients or to one or more recipients that become unintended recipients as a result of the inclusion of another recipient in the list of recipients in the group. There is also a need to provide a system and method of controlling, monitoring, detecting, and preventing electronic communications from not being sent to an intended recipient.